On the next pictures you can see how the Radeon DD R9 280X 1000M manages heat dissipation. The cooler is held in place with four screws only, but we didn’t notice any instability or vibration. If you decide to take off a cooler from the PCB, it will void the warranty. Sadly, the rear of the PCB features no backplate, which is not important for the performance but would make overall design much more visually appealing.

The PCB length is 26.7cm while the card with the cooler measures 28.4cm. Aside from the GPU, the fans are in charge of cooling hot components on the PCB too. XFX decided to use the baseplate to strengthen the PCB and provide better cooling for the memory chips and MOSFET. All the memory modules at the front of the PCB are tucked away underneath the reinforcement plate. XFX used high quality components such as solid capacitors and ferrite core chokes.

XFX DD R9 280X 1000M is equipped with extra power phase IC's thus going up from the standard 5 to 6 phase power setup. With this card, XFX is reaching out to overclockers, too, by unlocking voltages. It is advised not to go over 1.256V for the Asic (default voltage is 1.144V).

The GDDR5 memory chips are made by Elpida and they are specified to run at 1500 MHz (6000 MHz GDDR5 effective).

The new Double Dissipation cooler uses six heat pipes and Fin-Grid arrays of heat dissipaters, all of which are strategically custom positioned to ensure the most effective and efficient cooling working in unison with the evolved fans. The 6mm heatpipes are curved so they don’t protrude from the cooler at any point.

The welds between the heatpipes and aluminum fins are accurate and look like they’ve been done very well indeed.